Hello, I have two Iomega Storecentre IX2-NG's and have recently encountered a problem with one of them, which I would appreciate any advice on how to overcome. Both of the units have "model IX2-NG" printed on their Iomega labels, along with their serial numbers. However, I don't believe that they are actually the same models because they have different firmware versions, which I do not believe are compatible. One of the units is on firmware 3.3.2.29823 and has a single hard drive, whilst the other is on 4.1.112.33292 and has 2 hard drives (RAID).

A few days ago, I was deleting some files from the 3.3.2 unit, when it suddenly disconnected from the network. I tried to restart it via the on/off switch, but this had no effect, nor did pressing the reset button. The only way to switch it off was to disconnect the power supply. I can see the unit via my Lenovo Starage Manager software, but I get the message that "the device is currently unavailable". If I type the unit's IP address in to my browser, I can reach the home page, but can only see a message that "Device software restart in progress. The device is starting up", with a progress bar underneath it that has stuck on about 90% for 2 days! The white light is solid and the blue light is mostly solid, but occasionally begins flashing and i can hear the hard drive working. It does sound like it is trying to start or possibly indexing the thousands of files that are on it, but I can't believe that it would take this long to reboot.

From reading dozens of messages on these forums, I believe that the 3.3.2 unit has its operating system on the hard drive, whilst the 4.1.112 unit has its operating system in ROM. However, after reading so many messages I am not certain of this because I understand there is IX2-dl, IX2-ng, IX2-CE, IX2-200 and probably others. So I am a bit confused why both of mine say IX2-NG on them, but appear to be different. Anyone who can confirm or correct my thoughts would be appreciated.

Anyway, back to the stuck unit. I have tried swapping discs from the 4.1.112 unit and putting them in to the 3.3.2, but they did not work, probably because they would not have an operating system on them. I also tried putting the disc from the 3.3.2 unit in to the 4.1.112 unit, but that also failed to work. I don't know whether it should do?

So now I am thinking that the hard drive from the 3.3.2 unit has failed and I need to replace with a new hard drive and load the firmware, but before I embark on this step, I would appreciate any thoughts from more knowledgeable contributors. Is there anything else I can try? Does my logic make sense? If it wasn't for the fact that I can still hear the hard drive working, I would just go ahead and replace. I should add that the 4.1.12 unit does not have anything save on it at present and everything on the 3.3.2 unit is backed up elsewhere, so recovery is not an issue.

Mijzelf, thank you very much for taking the time to respond to my previous post. The photographs that you pointed me to on the wiki were most helpful and from them I was able to determine that in fact both of my Storecentres are indeed IX2-NGs. It still leaves me slightly confused, because one of them has the 4.1.112.33292 software and I thought I read on one of the forums (possibly the Lenovo forum) that the highest software that could be installed on the NG was the 3.3.2.29823, which I have on my crashed Storecentre. Anyway, that now appears to be wrong information, because after your help re the photographs, I put the 2 RAID discs with the 4.1.112 software in to the crashed Storecentre and it worked. Not sure why it hadn't worked previously. Perhaps I didn't wait long enough.

So, I have established that both units are -NGs and there is nothing wrong with either unit. However, when I then put the disc with the 3.3.2 software in to the 2nd unit, it still will not boot up and simply informs me via the home page that it is starting up. Therefore, would you agree that it is safe to assume that this disc has corrupted somehow and that I need to replace it, or at least wipe it clean? As I now realise that the RAID discs will work in both units, then the best solution would be to take a copy of one of the RAID discs and use that in the crashed unit. If I remove one of the RAID discs and replace it with a raw disc, will the system automatically create another copy? Can this then be used in the crashed unit? or will it expect a 2nd disc to sit alongside it? I didn't really want to have to buy 2 discs for the crashed unit. I was not planning to have that set up as RAID.

What would be your advice regarding the best way to now get the 4.1.112 software on to a disc for the crashed unit.

If I remove one of the RAID discs and replace it with a raw disc, will the system automatically create another copy? Can this then be used in the crashed unit? or will it expect a 2nd disc to sit alongside it?

The whole point of having a raid1 array is that one of the disks can fail, and the system can still work.

So by putting the two 4.1 disks in the two units, you basically create two degraded raid1 arrays, which is fine. (BTW, if you have done that, you can't revert easily. The disks will 'remember' the array was degraded, and the array will have to be resynced)The default action when you add a 2nd disk is to resync the array, but I guess you can remove the volume and create a new, not raid1, to prevent that.

If you have the possibility to test the 3.3 disk, and it appears to be healthy and only corrupted, you can try to reinstall the firmware.

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